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Friday, January 30, 2015

MRVED Business

MELT
Thank you to the 350 people that provided feedback on the MELT.  There was lots of great feedback and overall the MELT had 90% of the respondents give it a 4 or 5 on a 5 point scale.  The Superintendents have seen the feedback and the Teacher Advisory Council will be going over all the feedback and making recommendations for next year.

Upcoming Meetings
February 9 - Title III Teachers
February 11 - MRVED Board - 7 p.m.
February 19 - Teachers' Advisory Council

Summer Professional Development

Tonka Institute
If you are looking for some good, high quality, professional development this summer, the Tonka Institute is the place for you! This year they have a variety of speakers on 3 very important topics in education.  Below, you will find more information on the Tonka Institute.  More information can be found by going to the Minnetonka Institute for Educational Leadership website.

Please plan to join us for the 7th annual Minnetonka Institute for Educational Leadership! We hope that you can leverage this line-up of thought-provoking speakers to accelerate professional development and growth in your district. Each day of the institute will feature an important area of interest for educators as well as engaging experts who will offer keynotes, workshops, and other special opportunities. Here is the list of dates, themes, and speakers:

Monday, June 15, 2015 – Interventions and Achievement Gap
• George Batsche (from the RTI Action Network)
• Yvette Jackson (author of Aim High, Achieve More and The Pedagogy of Confidence)

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 – Innovation in Education
• George Couros (Blog: The Principal of Change)
• Heather Staker (author of the new book Blended with Michael Horn)
• Eric Scheninger (author of the new book Digital Leadership)
• Patti Drapeau (author of the new book - Sparking Student Creativity: Practical Ways to Promote Innovative
Thinking and Problem Solving)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015 – Assessment and Grading
• Doug Reeves (Director of Leadership and Learning Institute)
• Rick Stiggins (Director of the Assessment Training Institute – appearing via live feed)
• Nicole Vagle (national speaker on the topic of standards-based grading)
• Jeff Erickson (Minnetonka principal and author of scholarly articles on standards-based grading)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015 - Technology Half & Full Day Workshops
Thursday, June 18, 2015 – Technology Institute

• Tom Murray (leader of #edtechchat and Tech Consultant at Alliance for Excellent Education)
• Greg Kulowiec and Beth Holland (EdTechTeacher consultants)
• Area Technology Leaders and TIES Staff

Technology Tip - AwwApp

AwwApp
AwwApp is a collaborative online whiteboard.  It is touch-friendly and works in any internet browser.  This cool web app could be used for idea generation, group KWL, draw a group picture, finish the sentence, plus so much more!  It's an awesome tool to show your class and watch them use it.


Brain Breaks

Brain Breaks and Focused Attention Exercises
This is one of those articles that I normally would have glanced at as a teacher and disregarded.  However, the more I start to learn about the importance of brain breaks and focused attention activities, the more I wish I would have taken the time to learn about them.  The one gripe I would have had as a teacher is the time it takes to do one of these activities.  I now truly believe that the benefit to these activities outweighs the time.  Here is a great article from edutopia on brain breaks and focused attention exercises.  It provides a great list of practical activities you can do.